Nessus Pricing: Plans, License Costs and Alternatives

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Nessus pricing ranges from a free, non-commercial option to paid annual licenses for vulnerability assessment. Tenable also publishes multi-year pricing for Nessus Professional and Nessus Expert. The figures below reflect prices and licensing details published by Tenable and the alternatives’ official pricing pages.

Pricing at a glance#

Nessus Professional and Nessus Expert are licensed products, not per-user subscriptions in the prices Tenable publishes. Check Tenable pricing

Cost at 10, 50 and 200 users#

Tenable publishes Nessus pricing as a license price rather than a per-user price. Therefore, the list price does not change with a headcount of 10, 50 or 200 users. For the published one-year terms, the cost is $4,790 for Nessus Professional and $6,790 for Nessus Expert, according to Tenable.

The sources we checked do not publish per-user pricing or a separate user-based calculation for Nessus Essentials or Nessus Essentials Plus.

What each plan excludes#

Nessus Essentials is for non-commercial use, has a 30-day license and can scan up to 5 IPs. Its important limitations include no unlimited IP scanning, compliance checks, content audits, data exports, Live Results, expanded report options or technical support, according to Tenable.

Nessus Essentials Plus is also for non-commercial use and supports up to 20 IPs. The same Tenable comparison states that Essentials and Essentials Plus do not include unlimited IPs for network scanning, compliance checks, content audits, data exports, Live Results, expanded report options or technical support.

Nessus Professional is for commercial use and includes unlimited IP scanning, real-time plugin updates, compliance and configuration checks, and PDF, HTML and CSV reporting. The sources we checked do not publish a separate list of exclusions for this plan.

Nessus Expert includes the Nessus Professional features plus web application scanning and external attack surface discovery scanning, according to Tenable. The sources we checked do not publish a separate list of exclusions for this plan.

Cheaper alternatives#

Qualys

Qualys does not publish a fixed list price on its subscriptions page. Pricing depends on the selected Cloud Platform Apps, network addresses, web applications and user licenses. The page says customers can request a quote and that free trials are available, according to Qualys.

Rapid7 InsightVM

Rapid7 states that InsightVM is now part of Exposure Command. The pricing page directs visitors to request a demo or explore packages, but the sources we checked do not publish a list price for InsightVM or Exposure Command, according to Rapid7.

Because the alternatives’ official pages do not publish comparable list prices, the sources we checked do not establish that either alternative is cheaper than Nessus.

FAQ#

Is Nessus Essentials free?

Yes. Tenable lists Nessus Essentials as free, with a 30-day license for non-commercial use. It supports scanning up to 5 IPs, according to Tenable.

How much does Nessus Professional cost?

Tenable lists Nessus Professional at $4,790 for a 1-year license, $9,330.95 for 2 years and $13,637.54 for 3 years. Prices are listed on Tenable’s pricing page.

How much does Nessus Expert cost?

Tenable lists Nessus Expert at $6,790 for a 1-year license, $13,208.13 for 2 years and $19,304.19 for 3 years. Prices are listed on Tenable’s pricing page.

Is Nessus Essentials suitable for commercial use?

No. Tenable says Nessus Essentials and Nessus Essentials Plus are for personal, educational and non-commercial purposes. Nessus Professional is identified as the commercial vulnerability assessment tool, according to Tenable.

Does Nessus pricing depend on the number of users?

The published Nessus Professional and Nessus Expert prices are license prices, not per-user prices. The sources we checked do not publish a user-based pricing formula.